Killing a Chicken Using an Axe – not my cup of tea

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Warning, this post is about killing a chicken. Not everyone feels comfortable talking about culling a flock member, but sometimes it has to be done.

Which is why I taught myself to use a killing cone, if I’m going to teach workshops on raising chickens, then I need to teach people how to end a chicken’s life. And if I’m going to teach that subject, I’d better know how to perform that task.

Up until recently I had only used a cone for culling. I’d found that it provided a gentle and humane death for my chickens. However, every time I teach the section on using a cone, there’s always one person who grew up on a farm, or whose grandparents had chickens, who always tells me that an axe is better at doing the job.

And so I had always wondered. Is an axe really better than a killing cone?

And then one weekend, one of our chickens got very sick – very quickly. When my daughter went out to the hen house in the morning, she saw a chicken sitting in a corner.
“You’d better come out, mom. I don’t think she looks good.”

Sure enough, when I went out to the coop, I found a chicken who was sitting down and listing to one side. When I picked her up, she twisted her neck and rotated her head upside down and below her body.

That’s not a good sign. It means that an illness or infection has gotten into the nervous system and/or brain. But still, I wanted to give her a chance and so I isolated her and kept her quiet. Later that day, Logan came up to me.

“Mom, you need to check the chicken.”

He had looked in on her and saw that she was starting to have seizures. She was shaking and her body was in spasm. Her eyes were unfocused and when she tried to get up, she kept falling down. Her nervous system was quickly being destroyed.

I’ve tended to a lot of sick chickens in my life (in fact we have one recuperating in our house right now), but as a person who also has a medical background, I can recognize systemic shutdown when I see it. This chicken was not going to survive for much longer.

I teach chicken workshops and one of the topics I cover is how to humanely put down a chicken. I teach it to *everyone* who takes that class for this very reason. Even if you never intend on eating your chickens, the day may come when you have to make the decision to end a sick chicken’s life to stop its suffering.

On that day, I made that decision.

Because the hen was in such spasm, I made the decision to use an axe instead of the killing cone. I thought that putting her in the cone might have caused her unnecessary pain due to her spasms. I know, what’s a little pain when you’re going to kill her, right? But still, I didn’t want her to suffer any more than she had to.

My husband, Marc got an axe and I gently brought the bird over to a log. She didn’t fight it and in fact when I draped her neck over the log, she didn’t have the strength to even lift it up.
“This is going to be easier than I thought,” I said to myself.

Marc swung the axe. If I’m going to be honest, this was the part where I turned my head because I couldn’t look.

And here’s where I confess – I made a mistake. I made a big mistake.

I was prepared for it to be quick – a single slice and it’s over. That’s what I expected.

What I was not prepared for was the body of the chicken to try and get away after the head had been removed. I’ve heard stories of chickens running around with their heads cut off but I’ve always thought it was an exaggeration.

It’s not.

Marc and I watched for minutes (grateful that we hadn’t allowed the kids to be involved in this episode of chicken care) while our hen wildly flapped her wings like a bath toy swimming in the water.

“Oh my God,” I kept saying over and over, knowing that this memory would be going straight into that evening’s dreams as a fresh nightmare.

Eventually the body, after trying to burrow into a pile of leaves, stopped moving.
Marc and I looked at each other. “Guess I’m buying the first round of drinks tonight,” he said.
I’m here to tell you that never, never, ever again, will I use an axe on a chicken.

Never.

There is not enough bleach in the world to remove that memory from my eyes.

I teach that using the killing cone results in a relatively gentle (as gentle as death can be) end to your chicken. The bird slowly bleeds out and for the three times that we’ve done the killing cone, it looked like the bird goes to sleep.

Every time that I’ve taught about the killing cone, there is always a member of the class, usually someone who is older and who grew up around chickens, who gives me that look – the one that says, “by not using an axe you’re being a baby.”

Well go ahead and call me a baby.

Just because my grandparents did it that way, doesn’t mean that I have to. The axe although quicker, provides a level of senseless violence that I will not be a part of.

As a chicken owner, there will be times when we have to make difficult decisions. Our birds might get injured or very sick as this one was. We need to be able to make the decision to stop suffering.
I’m fine with that responsibility, it’s part of what I signed up for when I started a flock.

But I’m not fine with haunting images of a lingering, pain, and fear-filled death.

Look, no one wants to put any living creature down, it’s not a pleasant thing to do, but neither is allowing an animal under your watch to suffer. From now on, if I ever make the decision to cull another bird, it’s the killing cone only for me.

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38 Comments

I have not gotten into chickens yet, but plan to next year. Looking at the comments of this article, I think that using the cone method (using the idea of one comment of cone plus ax) to collect the blood below can be saved to use in the compost. Blood meal is made from blood right?… This keeps the chicken still and gives you nutrients for the garden.

I just had a look at killing cones,how in the hell can you call doing that more humane than a sharp axe?. Stuffed upside down in a cone waiting to have your throat cut. You use the cone for your own peace of mind nothing to do with the welfare of the chicken as far as I can see.

I live in a little rural town and the people here tend to kill their chickens by grabbing the animals neck and twirling it around with the chicken’s body until the head comes off or the axe method (the body then jumps around headless). I am not that brave to do any of those…I knock them out and then use the cone…

Hi, Thank you so much for your time an post. I like to eat chicken, but hate killing them. I know that what ever I do, when killing any time of animal -that I am nice to them, treat them with respect, and kill them as quickly as possible with as little or no pain as possible. Thanks again, Vichttp://www.meetup.com/NW-Preppers-and-Survivalists

I’m sorry for your ignorance. You clicked on this article knowing full well what it was discussing, yet you have the indecency to try to put everyone down for commenting on the article. Shame on you! Get a life or get some chickens.

My dad always used a 22 rifle with a very good scope. He would sit on the porch and select the chicken to go. The 22 doesn’t scare the flock or the chicken. They just drop and that is that. You have to take your time and be a pretty good shot.

When we process our roosters, we pick a day to do more than one at a time. We have our cone screwed onto a board and put it next to our log. We use an axe to cut the head off and immediately put the chicken upside down in the cone. When they spasm, they do it in the cone. By being upside down, they bleed out faster which makes the whole process quicker. It’s not traumatic to those around watching either. That being said, if we have rooster that are fighting, we do take a stick and give the aggressive rooster a crack in the head. We have a rule that if you have to hit it more than once to kill it, then you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place. A little humanity goes a long way, especially when the other animals have to watch you do it.

We use a very sharp axe and hold the chicken by its feet while its wings are flapping until it bleeds out completely. According to an old friend who helped us butcher chickens one year, the wing flapping helps it bleed out faster and more completely. I wouldn’t let a chicken flap around on the ground after its head was off. That would bruise the meat and sometimes wings get broken. Also, before killing it, if you hold the chicken upside down by its feet for a few minutes, it will go unconscious and will not be under as much stress when its head comes off. My family has processed chickens this way for years.

REVW, I tried to reply to your post but wasn’t able, so here is my comment. I am with you 100%. CO2 is the most humane way to euthanize a chicken. It’s very painless to both the deliverer of the message and the recipient. I would never slit my dog’s throat to put him down if he was suffering, why would I do that to my pet chicken? We have come a long way in our care of animals, and animal lovers can be an example to others of humane not barbaric treatment of their pets. Once, I ran over a frog and found him still alive but squashed and unable to move. I put him in a five gallon empty paint can, unscrewed the pour lid, set the exhaust of my car muffler in the whole and turned the car on. It took about 10 seconds to fill the container, I removed it and screwed the lid back on and within seconds the frog was out of his misery. I could have banged him over the head with a rock but why?

The most trauma free method if the bird is a pet is to use CO2, readily available as dry ice. To do this, use an airtight container that will hold a second container with the bird in it. The bird goes in something like a cat carrier, to prevent it from touching the block of dry ice. Place the carrier and the block of dry ice in the airtight container. As the oxygen decreases, the bird responds by sleeping. When we did the last rooster, we waited 15 minutes – there was no struggling, no flapping. He just tucked his head over his shoulder and was dead. The meat is perfectly usable.

Thank you so much for this post. My husband was brought up on a farm, with 100s of chooks(and those chooks had their heads chopped off with an axe), but he refuses to dispatch our chooks by cutting with anything. We’ve always let them die of old age previously, and even paid $35 to the vet a few years ago to inject a really sick chook (I know… laugh….)- we just can’t deliberately hurt them. We even tried giving them Valium (prescription type)-I’m here to tell you THAT doesn’t faze them one bit! Our present mongrel batch are producing very poor quality eggs and I want to start again with better chooks. As they are all about 2-3 years old, we can’t keep them till they grow old.Dry ice it is….

CO2 takes FOREVER. I had to cull some sick baby turkeys and did it with CO2 using dry ice. And well, it took 15-20 minutes or so, and they did flap around and peep and tried to get out of the container. They were suffocating for a long time. I think this method is about a nice as drowning them. Wish I had just chopped their heads off.

This method is surprisingly easy. I have had to do it twice and It was mercifully fast. Don’t be surprised if the head comes right off. This is how I do it: Get the bird and wrap it in a towel to keep it from flopping all over the place. Take it somewhere the other birds can’t hear. Get a broomstick. Hold bird by legs head down, and let its head & neck rest on the ground. The bird should be right-side up, comb facing the sky. Put a broomstick or equiv. across the neck behind the head, put your feet on each end of the stick to hold it down, then pull up on the feet. Don’t do it slowly—that’s mean. Pull up quickly–2-3 inches will do it. Breaks the neck immediately. The bird will flop for a few seconds, but at least it doesn’t spray blood all over the place as in hatchet method.

IMO I don’t think it matters which method is used: axe or cone. Both methods work. The point is in the effectiveness of the person culling the bird. As long as it is done quick and proper to end the animal’s suffering, that is what should matter.

There always seems to be some flapping and convulsing accompanying death. Ironically, the times I’ve seen the least of it wad with two chickens that broke their own necks by landing on their head. Literally gone in seconds, much quicker than axe/machette or cone and very sharp knife.

I have a quiet pellet gun I bought just for sick hens and regretfully I have had to use it a few times. I gently lay the hen down and find the spot in back of the head, midway up and 1 shot quickly puts them out of pain. There has never been any flapping or much blood. They just stretch and are gone. Brave chicken loving woman.

I have always wondered if you could put them in a sort of “mesh sweater” with their feet tied, then use the axe and hang the body to bleed out? It would stop the running which, if you don’t know it’s coming, is horrifying to watch….I know, I’m a real sissy but I was 4 years old the first time I saw it and I thought the dead, headless chickens were after me. I feel if you are going to raise animals and/or eat meat, you need to learn to cull the flock – but it’s hard anyway you choose to do it.

I put ours in an old feed bag with a hole cut in the corner for the head to stick out. I tie the bag closed and it keeps the birds pretty immobile. They move a little bit but not for long. After chopping off their heads I hang them up on a log and they bleed out pretty quickly. I wonder if using the killing cone just immobilizes them so it is not apparent that they may be moving. Immobilize the bird and hang it upside down and it’s quick and easy. Slice their neck/axe them and let them run around (like in the post above) and, well, yeah, awful for the birds and the people involved.

Goodness, the chicken whose head was chopped off, wasn’t trying to get away as you put it. It was dead. I use a very sharp axe. It’s a very quick killing method. I’ve seen the cone killing done, and in the time someone kills one chicken, I could kill 3 by using the axe. I agree with the comment killing the chicken with the axe was traumatic on you, but it wasn’t for the chicken…it was a quick, as painless as possible, death.

My wife’s paternal grandmother used to put a wash-tub over the chicken and then raise one edge slightly. Invariably, the chicken would poke its head out and she’d hold it there by holding the wash-tub down on it. Then, when she gave it the coup-de-grace, it would flap inside the tub and not go running a country mile.

I usually wrap my birds snug in a large bath towel when it is their time to meet the knife. Just for the record, using a knife predates the axe method. Temple Grandin is an beautiful voice on the subject.

The difference between using a killing cone and an axe (or the broom stick method) is not severing the spine. The last signal to the brain when the spine is severed is run, which the body does. If the killing cone is used properly only the arteries are severed. Neither way is more or less stressful on the bird, IMO. But there is probably less adrenaline release with the cone. If I ever get around to buying a killing cone I’ll use it over the axe.

Yes, that is what I have always heard. Many people prefer the cone because of the least amount of adrenaline release, so the meat tastes better. The axe does end the pain quickly for the bird, though it may not look like it. The running around is more of a reflex. The head is gone; it can not feel. There is no brain feeling or telling it to run away from the crazy person with the axe.

I am curious how slicing a bird’s neck and letting it bleed to death for several minutes releases less adrenaline than chopping off the head, in which the signal for releasing adrenaline may not be made because, well, the brain is removed from the body. ? Sorry for the run on sentence, but it just seems like a bird dying over several minutes would have more time to release adrenaline than one in which it died instantly with the chop of an axe.

The axe seems like it would end the chickens pain quicker than letting it bleed out so it appears to me that your use of the killing cone instead of the axe is not to ease your chickens pain but rather to make it less traumatic on you during the process.

That might be true, after all, it takes two to tango and it’s not just the chicken that should be considered, the executioner is also involved. No one likes to end an animal’s life.

However, if you believe that traumatized animals release chemicals into their body when stressed or afraid, then after seeing what I saw, I’d much rather eat a chicken that died “peacefully” (if there is such a thing) than one who died under stressful conditions.

I agree Wendy. We’ve been keeping chickens for nearly 10 years now and I also grew up on a farm where we raised ate our animals (along with our home grown vegetables) and I’ve seen a number of ways to kill animals and during that time, and by far the most peaceful way I’ve seen and used is the cone. When I spend so much time and resource raising our animals with love and respect, I’m not about to end their lives with violence. I know for many people disconnected from where their food comes from, this sounds contradictory, but it is possible to have a peaceful death and if I’m being honest, I already feel bad enough that I’m the one perpetrating the ending so I’m not about to add trauma and any more pain than absolutely necessary to that act. – April

The use of killing cones came about so the animal dies in a more relaxed state. If you are killing for meat, you want the animal to be relaxed or at least as relaxed as possible. The meat is more tender and there is no tainting of adrenaline pumping through the muscles. These and production killing are the reasons the killing cone was invented. It allows for the blood to drain in a directed manner (cleaner kill area), hanging up side down keeps the animal calmer (better tasting meat, easier to kill). I grew up with the hatchet method, but I will be getting a few cones for the new homestead my wife and I are starting.

Forgive me if you don’t agree, but i don’t see how the cone is any more effective humanley than an axe. Let me explain. I had never heard of a cone killing until i read this article, and i was excited to read it. Unfortunately it wasn’t very detailed so i looked it up, and reviewed it’s many images, and i have come to this conclusion, the cone is no more humane than the axe, it just makes us feel better as the the bird doesn’t take off in a spasm. But i cannot say that it is any less cuel; if you actually think about it. I read on one site that as the bird is hanging upside down, it goes into a sleepy trance, and that is probably so. Does anyone remember hanging upside down on the monkey bars as kids? We would get dizzy and develop a headache if we hung that way long enouph, due to the blood rushing to our head. We’ll that’s what we are doing when we insert the birds into the cone. And they don’t don’t flop around in madness as you bleed them because they are to constructed to move. All in all, if it were me to have to decide which way to go for myself, the axe actually seems less terrifying, as i won’t be hung upide down to feel the blood rushing to my head wondering is this person going to kill me yet or what?

I raise meat chickens a dozen at a time and I use the killing cone method. I always hang the chicken upside down for a couple a minutes until they pass out and then slip them into the cone and cut the jugular(sp). This method pretty much puts them to sleep and keeps them asleep until they are gone.